MIT App Inventor: Objectives, Design, and Development

Evan W. Patton; Michael Tissenbaum; Farzeen Harunani

doi:10.1007/978-981-13-6528-7_3

MIT App Inventor: Objectives, Design, and Development

Evan W. Patton, Michael Tissenbaum, Farzeen Harunani

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Abstract

MIT App Inventor is an online platform designed to teach computational thinking concepts through development of mobile applications. Students create applications by dragging and dropping components into a design view and using a visual blocks language to program application behavior. In this chapter, we discuss (1) the history of the development of MIT App Inventor, (2) the project objectives of the project and how they shape the design of the system, and (3) the processes MIT uses to develop the platform and how they are informed by computational thinking literature. Key takeaways include use of components as abstractions, alignment of blocks with student mental models, and the benefits of fast, iterative design on learning.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Computational Thinking Education
Editors	Siu-Cheung Kong, Harold Abelson
Publisher	Springer
Chapter	3
Pages	31-49
ISBN (Electronic)	978-981-13-6528-7
ISBN (Print)	978-981-13-6527-0
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6528-7_3
State	Published - May 3 2019
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

computational thinking
computational action
educational technology
programming languages
block-based programming
mobile learning

Online availability

10.1007/978-981-13-6528-7_3

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KW - educational technology

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KW - block-based programming

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ER -

MIT App Inventor: Objectives, Design, and Development

Abstract

Keywords

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